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Tuesday, 24 December 2013

Alan Turing has been posthumously pardoned for being
convicted of being gay, the barbaric and vicious persecution for which
eventually drove him to take his own life.

I have a lot of conflicting feelings about this one.

Firstly, for anyone asking “why Turing?” I have to say
you don’t understand the iconic nature of Turing to British GBLT people because
he symbolised so much.

He was a prime example of a gay man, in history standing
up and performing an incredible service for his county – and in one of the most
iconic conflicts of our history. He is an example of a gay man who achieved
incredible thing with a lasting legacy that has benefitted not only the
country, but the entire world. This is what we are capable of. These are the
people you condemn with your homophobic.

Because of this incredible thing, he is also iconic of
the toxicity of homophobia. A homophobia that not only persecuted him to death
despite of the vast debt owed to this man, but also despite of the great things
he never had the chance to achieve. That is the waste of homophobia. That is
how overwhelming it is

And this toxicity of homophobia went further, because he
was erased. History didn’t remember him. He was removed from it, not just in
our schools but in our media (there are television shows and film adaptations
and even documentaries out there about the work of Bletchley Park and early
computing. Guess who is missing from them/made straight?). The reason why he is
so well known now is because British GBLT people fought passionately to make it
so – because it was so outrageous that this great man was being removed from
history because he was one of us. How dare they? How dare they pretend he never
existed?! How dare they make him straight? We fought and we fought hard to make
sure he was remembered again. You’ll notice how many monuments to him appear in
traditionally gay neighbourhood. You’ll notice how FEW monuments there are to
him that predate 2000.

He is symbolic of the untold masses of GBLT heroes and
ancestors who we have lost, who have been removed from the pages of history and
who we will never be able to reclaim.

Alan Turing wasn’t just a great man who was evilly
persecuted – but he is also a great symbol.

So where do my conflicting feelings come in?

My conflict comes in not just because it’s a gesture that
doesn’t change the past so much as try to play the “we’re so much better now”
card (I would actually rather have more comprehensive history of GBLT people,
our achievements and the persecution of us entered into the school curriculum
to mark his horrendously unjust death more than anything else) and is therefore
a pretty easy bandwagon for even the most homophobic of politician to jump on
(notably, however, a rather huge amount of them didn’t) while at the same time
we’ve seen political reticence (to say the least) on dealing with banning
reparative therapy, doing something substantive about homophobic bullying,
extreme homophobic discrimination in the asylum and immigration system, our
woefully poor and homophobic sex education laws, the problems of homophobia in
religious schools, homophobia in sports and a series of cuts that are, as with
most cuts, hitting GBLT people and other marginalised people far harder than
most (for some examples among many –organisations like the Association of GBLT
police officers have had their funding cut. Legal aid has been gutted, homeless
services butchered etc etc).

Tuesday, 17 December 2013

I’ve
said it before and I’ll say it again, Pope Francis is an amazing agent of
PR. He makes pretty speeches, throws in some dramatic (but ultimately
unhelpful) gestures and people crawl over themselves to praise him as some kind
of living saint. It’s remarkable – he continues to maintain policies that are
the very height of vicious bigotry but people are turning out to sing the man’s
praises! Pretty speeches guys! Washing feet! He sits on a simple chair! A
SIMPLE CHAIR! Truly this is the thing saints are made of! Truly only militant
atheists could possibly oppose this homophobe! Never mind that his church continues to
fight against marriage equality, anti-discrimination provisions and even to try
and keep our existence illegal, he made a pretty speech! How dare you criticise him!

The man will probably be made a living saint before the
end – these pretty speeches are just so awesome.

The Advocate is advocating for homophobes now. At least
the comment section is as appalled as I am. It’s not only grossly nauseating to
give this man the award for making pretty speeches while maintaining homophobic
policies, but it’s an

The desperate need to fawn over straight people, no matter how bigoted, over
and over again doesn’t seem to be fading, alas. These are the scars that
homophobia leaves – we have so little respect for our own self-worth that even
the most token, failed attempts at being slightly-less-awful to us are
considered wonderful and worthy of cookies.

Hey, maybe, just maybe, at some point this pope will
actually do something for GBLT people. And when he does, then we can look at
praise and accolades.

But he has done nothing. He has changed nothing. His
pretty speeches are hollow, his church continues to promote bigotry throughout
the world, he continues to support evil persecution of the worst kind. The
church hasn’t changed and he has made no effort to change it

Thursday, 12 December 2013

Bigot Baroness Warsi, who published pamphlets warning people of the terrible dangers of gay people preying on school children, has let us know she's on a "journey" when it comes to the equality of gay people.

Homophobic journalist Mehdi Hasan (he who thinks gay people worried about the World Cup being held in Qatar where gay people are flogged are "qatarphobic") has written a long piece on how much he STRUGGLES with homophobia and he was totally even more homophobic in the past!

The Salvation Army - a deeply homophobic organisation (you should really donate to other charities if you think GBLT people are human beings) - has assured us they've removed their ex-gay therapy links - and they totally won't let the guy who thinks the penalty for being gay is death to speak again. Of course, they're not changing policy

The Pope makes some pretty speeches while maintaining the bigotry of his church - continuing to fight tooth and nail against equality measures in Italy, Ireland, the US, India (yes, the Catholic church was one of those that pushed to bring back the anti-gay genocide in that country) and many more places. But his apologists cry "baby steps".

And we can scarcely go a week without some wanna-be ally describing the convoluted steps he's taken to discover that LO! GBLT PEOPLE MIGHT ACTUALLY BE PEOPLE!

Enough

I don't give a fuck what "journey" you're on or how much "better" you've got. I don't care that you have backtracked on SOME of your bigotry. I don't care about the "baby steps" you take when you're still miles from seeing me as an actual person

You're still a bigot

You're still a homophobe.

I don't care if you feel really guilty about going to see Ender's Game. I don't care if every time you eat your Chick-fil-a, you make a mea-culpa blog post and feel really bad. I don't care how much you have "struggled" with the idea that I am a human being as worthy as you.

You're still a bigot

You're still a homophobe

Do you not see how INSULTING it is that you are having an epic struggle to see me as a person? Do you not see how offensive it is for you to declare that looking at me as an equal is some kind of massive hardship to you? Don't you see what a slap in the face it is to say you have to "evolve" or "grow" to finally realise that I'm an actual person worthy of respect?

Sunday, 8 December 2013

We will, for the moment, leave aside the fact I didn't ask him to, that he didn't know what I intended to cook, what vegetables I intend to use (if any) or even, really, whether the vegetables he was chopping even remotely go with each other, let alone anything else I intend to cook. Also, of course, "chop" and even "peel" can mean many things depending on what veg you're cutting and for what recipe

I mean, I wouldn't mind if he'd chopped an onion. The chances of me not frying and onion in butter and garlic no matter what I'm cooking is pretty remote. All food starts with chopped onion, butter and garlic. Well, almost.

But, no, I will leave that aside. For now.

But I do object to him chopping the turnips

Because we do not have turnips.

We do have pomegranates.

I think you can see where I am going with this.

I... can't quite fathom how one mistakes a pomegranate for a turnip.

I'm also not sure why, even if shocked to find your "turnip" contains a multitude of ruby red seeds, it is quite necessary to spread those little seeds everywhere. Absolutely everywhere.

Oh, and if he'd checked the oven he would find the chilli, nicely slow cooking away, already made and in no need of any vegetables at all

Friday, 22 November 2013

I’m having a drunken musing about some of my GBF
problems, including some of the people in my life who try to treat me as a
mascot, or a toy or feel a desperate need to get close to me to be their
bestest friend so they can be one of the cool crowd.

It’s annoying. And many of them are annoying for the usual reasons of
fetishism/privilege/dehumanisation and general annoyance that comes with
straight privilege and causes me headaches.

But there are a couple who surprised me because I though,
to a degree, they had more sense (and, to be fair, they generally behave better
albeit still annoyingly). I, for a long time, put it down to the fact that it’s
amazing how good people can be at hiding their prejudices and it can shock you
at the worst times making no-one truly safe (case in point, friend I complained
about lately in long complainy post I mean to go into more detail on when I’m
not drunk and typing drunkenly on a tablet while laid on a drunk Beloved who
is, indeed, drunk).

But there is another element (not to
friend-I-complained-about-and-is-no-longer-friend, but to others) to these
generally clueful people. It comes to not understanding what being “out” means
to everyone.

Because, of course, being gay is a big big big, super big massive secret,
right? So if she’s in on the BIG SECRET then that must mean she’s one of my
closest of close friends, right? Because it’s not like I would ever tell a near
stranger that I’m gay!

But I view being gay as basic biographical information for me – it’s not a
secret, just about anyone who knows me knows I’m gay. A casual acquaintance will
know I’m gay.

So she thinks she’s my bestest friend ever because I trusted her with my
biggest secret. I think she’s a person I met once or twice who has a poor sense
of boundaries.

It’s not an excuse for the overwhelming majority
(displayed by general behaviour) but for this odd blip of behaviour from an otherwise
apparently decent person it may be the key

Of course, there follows the “I’m sorry, we’re not
actually friends, sorry you got the wrong impression” conversation which is
AWKWARD. Hallmark should really make a card “You think we’re friends! I don’t
really like you – sorry!”

Or maybe a cake? Chocolate with “I don’t like you very
much! Take a slice and go away!” written on the top?

Monday, 11 November 2013

Most years I do talk about Remembrance Days and what it
means and it’s importance and how I think the way we commemorate the day is
different from the way a lot of other people seem to commemorate this date.

To me – and, in general, to the people around I’ve seen
and the country as a whole, I don’t think this day is about veterans. Oh the
British Legion is there in force, of course, handing out the poppies, but I
think living veterans has always been a very minor part of what this day is
about in Britain.

And it certainly isn’t about honour. Or glory. Or victory. It isn’t about
celebration or joy or remembering that we won or the enemies we defeated or
“freedom” whatever (apart from anything else, the date chosen is the end of
World War 1, the Great War – a war that was pretty much devoid of anything
resembling honour, glory or even definable victory. A war which can probably be
best characterised as one fought for so little in the way of actual reason
beyond foolish pride and hair trigger tempers and lots of damn fools looking
for a damned excuse)

To me, this day is always about loss. It’s about utter
tragedy. It’s about rows upon rows upon rows of graves that had no reason to be
filled. Long fields of death and loss. It’s about cities reduced to rubble,
it’s about families who lost entire generations in the meat grinder of war.
It’s about the refugees losing everything – it’s about blood and tears and the
sheer, utter, enraging pointlessness of it all.

On this day I don’t want to hear of “honour” because
honour means nothing to the millions of dead. I don’t want to hear about
“glory” because the glorious dead are still dead. I don’t want to hear about
“victory” because the dead never win. And I certainly loathe the creeping habit
of CELEBRATING
this day – you do not celebrate millions dead before their time.

This is a national day of mourning. And a day of shame –
shame because the atrocity of war happened and is still happening – and we wave
our flags and rattle our sabres and do not learn. Perhaps if we stopped telling
the old lies, stopped treating war like a game, then maybe we would begin to
truly Remember.

When we had the first 2 minute silence in the UK in 1919 it was hard – because
the crowd had to fight back tears of too-fresh pain. That is what we should
remember.

Monday, 4 November 2013

The last few weeks have been chaos with more chaos and extra chaos. Actually it's getting on for months now

We had family drama then family socialising then more drama from the socialising topped with more socialising and relatives all over the place and you're not allowed to kill any of them

We had the work drama of DOOM due to 3 colleagues all not working for different reasons (hiatus, pregnancy, leaving to another firm) and NO-ONE TELLING ANYONE ELSE ABOUT THIS and the SPs again proving that they may be bloody excellent lawyers but they're bloody shit organisers which created WORK LOAD OF DOOM.

A 52" 3D television turning up in my living room then being dismantled for reasons I cannot even begin to fathom. Beloved was involved. Things became complicated. A fish tank broke.

Various things conspired to completely destroy the lead we'd built up on Fangs for the Fantasy just as the busy Autumn season starts and I know, hiatus is fine, dropping some of the schedule is fine - but my obsessive-zomg-you-do-this-or-you-have-FAILED does not agree.

A person who thinks she's a great friend of mine but I considered to be a moderate friend has kind of reinforced why I was never close to them. They're a source of great drama and stress and worse they ARE a big-uber-good friend of F who now feels torn and it's a complete minefield of emotion and badness

Beloved's parents said something pretty tasteless and hurtful to Beloved and then tried to explain themselves by being even worse but it basically boils down to they don't think Beloved and I should ever ever ever think of having children for reasons-that-are-totally-not-homophobic-honest-but-really-are and they're now playing they we're-totally-not-going-to-resolve-this-we're-just-going-to-not-talk-about-it which works FINE if you're arguing over whether Aunty Pearls vase is more hideous than a mutilated cow's arse, but is rather inadequate when the topic is "would we shun our grandchildren". It's causing some fallout beyond that because Beloved was still living under the rather naive delusion that his family had fully accepted him; which is kind of odd because it was kind of blatantly obvious that, no they hadn't but at the same time it's easy to convince ourselves of something we want to believe

It also meant that everything I mentioned here just kept happening. Endless human contact, endless people needing something from me, endless social events and never ever alone has frankly eroded me down to a very brittle, fragile state. Still I cling to the positive - I may be brittle and fragile and fraying at the edges and needing to tip-toe desperately around my teetering sanity but I HAVEN'T shattered. And yes, that's an achievement, that's progress.

Beloved isn't and doesn't shatter, he quietly fumes, loudly raves or just decides "well that's done then" and just abandons huge segments of his life, no matter how invested he is in it - it's a rather terrifying element about him. He will decide a thing, a hobby, a job, a person even a close friend or loved one is no longer a source of goodness to him and... they're gone. End of. Erased. I'm both impressed and quietly freaked out by his ability to do that

Friday, 11 October 2013

The closet and coming out is something I have spoken
about a lot and I’d like to take the opportunity in this day to bring many of
these thoughts together.

Firstly,
the closet itself. Too many ignorant straight, cis people consider the closet
to be an asset to us – that the fact we can hide makes homophobia and
transphobia a “lesser prejudice” compared to others. This is a highly
privileged and dismissive view that
misses the damage and pain the closet causes – and the elements of
homophobia and transphobia that arise because of the closet.

The closet itself leads to the unique experience of
coming out which, in turn, leads to one of the fraught dangers that most
afflicts GBLT people. We’re very rarely born among our own people. We rarely
have families and mentors close to us to guide our way and tell us how the
world is. This not only makes us vulnerable to negative influences from society
and media since we lack personal counters – but it also means that we are often
born among our worst enemies. That those who should love us the most are the
ones who will reject us, hurt us and torture us so completely. The
closet is so toxic that it can warp us.

Thursday, 10 October 2013

So, Dan Savage (he of many problems) is helping start a
new video campaign in the mould of “It Gets Better”. This one is called “we’re
not all like that.”

It’s basically a place where religious people can make
videos assuring GBLT people that they’re not raging bigots.

Uh-huh. My eyes are rolling so much they’re getting
friction burns.

Firstly, I do not think we need to broadcast this message
because we already hear it over and over and over again. You cannot criticise
any element of bigotry from organised religion without veritable flocks of
apologists zooming in to wring their hands about us being so mean to worldwide
forces of bigotry singing, first and foremost, that “we’re not all like that.”
(The only reason you won’t get it on this post is because I have so
little patience for such arguments that I’ve slapped them down and hard). And
then the conversation (if any) about how organised religion is supporting
bigotry derails into flocking round hurt religious fee-fees because the
organisations they are supporting and affiliating with continue to oppose human
rights.

Because that is what “we’re not all like that” inevitably
means – not supporting LGBT people who have to deal with worldwide religions
that loathe our existence – but playing PR for those religions so they can
dismiss their own bigotry. Or providing a sop for the conscience of people who
are supporting bigoted religions but still want to think of themselves as one
of the “good ones”.

I don’t want to hear “we’re not all like that” because we
already spend more than enough time focusing on the exceptions to the RULE of
religious homophobia rather than actually challenging religious homophobia or
seeing it as acceptable.

And, frankly, I’m not sure I believe you. Ok, maybe you’re “not all like that”,
but most of you? Yeah, I think most of you ARE like that or, at very least,
quite happy to tolerate “that.” How many billions of you support bigoted
churches with your presence and your resources? How many of you say “we’re not
all like that” then attend a Catholic mass or put money in an Othodox
collection plate or tithe to the LDS or tick “Anglican” on the census form? How
many of you say “we’re not all like that” and attend a synagogue condemning
marriage equality or a mosque participating in an event inviting speakers who
think gay people should be thrown off a mountain?

How many of you declare “we’re not all like that” but are
quite willing to support people and organisations that are? How many of you sit
in the pews and ignore the policy of your churches? How many of you close your
ears to the hatred? How many of you decide it’s not that important?

How many of you actually DO anything to show “you’re not all like that” other
than make a crappy youtube video – if that?

Tuesday, 8 October 2013

The last few weeks have been immensely busy, mainly with work but also with an annoying amount of socialness which has kind of left me wanting to hermit.

There are some people who see an introvert and decide it’s time to make me be all social which will then make me HAPPY and JOYFUL and SUNSHINEY WONDERFUL

This combines annoyingly with my mental illnesses to have lots of really helpful people pushing me to get out more because this will magically cure me. More sunlight! More company! More loud, noisy crowds doing loud, noisy crowd things! If I’d just get out more and have fun why I wouldn’t need therapy or my pills or to swing great big axes at people’s heads.

Of course, my social phobias and general dislike of people, anxiety and fear of people especially in large numbers combines to make this the very opposite of help. I think I actually prefer the “have you tried eating X” crowd who think all my problems will go away if I just eat enough vitamin c or goji berries or whatever miracle cure du jour they’ve scanned off the arse end of the internet to the “just socialise and have fun” crowd.

Of course, the badgering at me to get out more wears down my dealing-with-crap reserves until I agree to shut them up – and then go, deplete reserves further and find myself less up to a long fight about why I don’t want to go out YET AGAIN

“But you have fun when you go out!”

Yeah, often I do. Sometimes I do. Usually. But that doesn’t change the amount of effort and energy involved, nor does it mean that, at various points during the event, I’m going to have unfortunate brain melt downs (more on that later) or freaky mood swings or anxiety attacks or generally just be afraid ALL THE DAMN TIME and yes I can do that EVEN WHILE apparently having fun. And it’s DRAINING. Really tiring.

Which means my social life, especially public social life, has a cool down (yes I use computer game references for mental illness). If I’ve revved up to going out last night, I am now out of social manna for tonight. I am /oom! And forcing it is going to create some freaky kind of mana-debt that most computer games don’t let you have because it’s a BAD IDEA, especially since I need to reserve some social mana for work (my sustained spells. Yes I can maintain this metaphor forever).

Wednesday, 2 October 2013

Osborne, being the nasty little Tory he is, has a new
plan to help fight unemployment in this country – demonising the long term
unemployed!

Did I say “new plan”? Because that kind of sounds like the Tory’s old plan. In
fact, it sounds like the Tory’s only plan.

His plan is that long term unemployed will now have to do
full time community service, attend a full time course or go to the job centre
every single day.

So let us count the wrongness

This Demonises the
Unemployed

The Tories are stuck on the idea that the unemployed are
lazy leeches on society – it’s not just a matter of delusion, it’s a lie they
have to tell themselves. The only way they can continue to reshape the country
to make the rich even richer and screw the poor harder and harder is to chant
the mantra that it is the poor’s fault.

The minute you accept that the economy is screwed up
(caused by rich bankers who have had some wonderful welfare in response) and
that even in this time of “recovery” we’re seeing the majority of wealth coalescing
in the hands of the rich while the standard of living for everyone else drops
along-side earnings and benefits then we have to start questioning our system –
and whether all the Tory cronies really need things like a cut to the upper
rate of tax.

The Tories need to demonise the unemployed to maintain
their myth of society and justify their cruel, selfish actions. This proposal
is just another extension of that.

It Doesn’t Create
Jobs

It doesn’t matter what you do to the unemployed, if there
are no jobs then they can’t work. It’s that simple, especially in places
outside the south-east (yes, Londoners, there are places outside the
south-east). It doesn’t matter what new plans Osborne conjures up to torment
and attack them, the unemployed cannot get jobs if there are no jobs to get –
or 1 job among 20 applicants.

It Actively
Hinders Job Search

Job hunting takes time, it takes energy and it’s
emotionally highly damaging. Forcing pointless, time consuming tasks with an
added level of demonization on job seekers for extra morale destruction does
not help. Leaving people tired, dispirited and too busy to find work is the
very opposite of help

Do we have such a low opinion of our value, so little
respect for our personhood, that this level of fawning happens every time this
nasty bigot of this nasty bigoted organisation says anything? Are we worth so
little that these non-gestures are to be praised? Are we so disgusting that
this mealy mouthed “nice” bigotry is something we should be grateful for?

No? Then why are you validating this shit?! I and mine are worth more than
Frances’ patronising non-acceptance. I resent the yapping gratitude to a man
who STILL won’t acknowledge our full humanity.

Look at what he said!

He didn’t change policy or doctrine of the Catholic church. He hasn’t changed
the Catholic church’s homophobia or misogyny. He hasn’t said women can be
leaders equal to men. He hasn’t said love between GBLT people is as valid or
equal to that between straight people. He hasn’t said that He hasn’t changed
the Catholic church’s position on non-discrimination laws, marriage equality,
abortion or contraception.

He hasn’t said the church will stop fighting against our
human rights. He hasn’t said the church will stop treating us like shit. He
hasn’t apologised for his own vile hate speech. He hasn’t apologised for the
evil shit his church has perpetuated. He hasn’t apologised for his homophobic
co-speech with Benedict.

He’s said there needs to be less of a focus on it. Because
the Catholic church is becoming known as the homophobia and anti-choice church.

It’s a PR exercise. It’s like a man kicking puppies and
then deciding he’s still going to kick puppies, but he’ll not extol the virtues
of puppy kicking quite so much. And we’re going to praise him for this crap?

He is not pushing for any change of policy or doctrine.
He is not trying to reduce bigotry one iota. He is not stopping his church pushing
the same level of toxic hatred that is killing people

But he’s praised. He’s praised because we don’t matter. He’s
praised because bigotry from the church is RIGHTEOUS and beyond criticism.

And if you think that this is a huge step for the church
then that isn’t something to praise! That is proof of the utter, repellent evil
the church is consumed by. If this is all the good it can manage, then it
should be condemned – it should be shunned, it should be reviled! Not praised
for petty gestures of humanity being the only shred of goodness it can manage. If
it is so lost to evil then it shouldn’t be praised for that.

And why would it change faster? You’re all out there throwing cookies at the man
for a pretty speech! This isn't even a case of giving cookies to people for meeting minimum standards of humanity - because he hasn't even done that! This is handing cookies to a bigot who has the common sense to gild his bigotry! That’s twice at least that you’ve done that! You eat up
his bigotry and sing his praises! Why should he or the church try to change any
faster? You’ll kneel at his feet and fawn at his ankles because he’s willing to
say nice things while he beats you!

I’m sick of being smacked and then expected to say thank
you. I’m sick of these bigots trampling on us and far too many of us saying how
wonderful the bigots are for stomping on our necks. It’s pathetic, it’s
depressing and shows just how much contempt for us is normalised, internalised
and all encompassing.

A significant moment? Not really - just another edition of the shit we'll swallow.

Thursday, 19 September 2013

There is a war brewing. Or rather, there is some epic
revenge brewing, I just need to decide exactly what is appropriate. So far I am
torn between feeding Beloved to enraged Honey Badgers (and is there any other
kind of Honey Badger?) or making his brain melt by making him watch BBC
channels with numbers above 2. Or making him watch reality TV until he loses
all faith in humanity and slowly fades away from sheer despair.

Reality TV is much more easily obtained than Honey
Badgers, it has to be said. I think that’s a fundamental flaw of society – less
fly-on-the-wall, more enraged mustelids!

But what heinous crime did Beloved commit to earn death
by badgers? Why, so provoking was it that I suspect he may be trying to commit
suicide by Sparky.

See – I bake. This is well known. I bake all kinds of
scrummy goodness, completely from scratch and all designed to ensure you will
die from severely clogged arteries but damn it will be worth it.

Wednesday, 4 September 2013

So this dishonest
article in the Advocate is the latest in a long line of Christian bigotry
apologists calling for there to “peace” and a “middle ground” between GBLT
people and Christians – and how both sides are as bad as each other.

Why is it dishonest? Because it completely misses the context of this “war”.
And, I’ll agree, there is a war being fought.

There is a war being fought because Christians (and other
religious groups) are constantly attacking us. There are multi-million pound
Christian groups created with destroying our rights as one of their express
purposes. Politicians get up and speak against every right we fight for while
waving Bibles in the air. The head of the biggest Christian denomination in the
world spouts hate speech every bit as hateful as the Westboro Baptist church. In
my country the Anglican church weasels its way around desperately fighting
against our rights every time they’ve come up for a vote – and because they are
an established church they actually, sickening, have a vote to make their bigotry
law. The Christian Orthodox church in Russia is up to its neck in Russian
anti-gay laws and other branches of the Orthodox church can be found
championing bigotry throughout the Balkans. The Catholic church around the
world can be relied upon for the most hateful homophobic rhetoric and the most
powerful opposition to every and any right we fight for.

Quite literally BILLIONS of Christians support these
homophobic denominations.

And the gay equivalent…

See, we’re not fighting to have Christians executed. We’re
not fighting to have Christians arrested. We’re not fighting to have forceful
conversion of Christians. We’re not fighting to have Christians fired. We’re
not fighting to break up Christian marriages. We’re not fighting to have
anti-Christian bigotry championed in schools. We’re not fighting to have
Christian kids bullied to the point of suicide. We’re not fighting to get
anything FROM Christians or to do anything TO Christians. We have no vested
interest in fighting Christianity – only in defending ourselves AGAINST it.

This is a war – but it isn’t two sides attacking each
other. It’s one side constantly attacking and the other side constantly
defending.

Friday, 30 August 2013

So the parliament has, to everyone’s shock, voted against
military adventures in Syria.

That’s a relief.

As to “intelligence reports” that they keep waving us
saying that they prove whatever? I don’t care.

I don’t care because I am unable to believe them. They could be true. They
could be false. They could be created from sheer ineptitude. They could be
deliberately falsified to deceive us. The “intelligence services” have no
credibility

We went to war in Iraq – an utter debacle – because of
the peddled words of the “intelligence services.” In the aftermath no-one has
faced any public consequences for the lying or (if I’m giving them vast benefit
of the doubt) extreme incompetence. Without that I cannot assume any
significant change has taken place – so the words of the intelligence services
become meaningless. There is no point in listening to a liar – and it is an act
of utter foolishness to trust one.

But surely I cannot doubt chemical weapons have been
used?

True, I don’t. But nor do I think that the US & UK
swooping in dropping bombs on people is actually going to make that better. I
desperately want chemical weapons not to exist, I desperately want the war to
end and I do wish we could intervene – but I
do not trust us to do so!

Through ineptitude, malice, selfishness or a complete
inability to examine the world through any other lenses than our own, our “intervention”
is hardly the benevolent force we seem to think. I do not think we are CAPABLE
of making things better. I also doubt very much whether our leaders WANT to
make things better – at least for the people of Syria. We use words like “democracy”,
“freedom” and “human rights” a lot and leave bodies, dictators and torture in
our wake.

As to this somehow doing terribad damage to Britain’s “reputation”
or making us look “weak”.

Monday, 26 August 2013

I do not like said arsehole and would normally draw the line at cooking for
arseholes, but I was assured by F (whose judgement I generally… well, do not
trust to be honest, because she’s a very random person) that he’s probably
being an arsehole because he’s trying to impress his new girlfriend, her friend
N. We both are very confused at the straight guy thing of acting like an
arsehole to impress girls. Peacocks have shiny feathers, stags have antlers,
straight guys have loud, showing-off arseholery. Does it actually work?

Anyway, said arsehole had previously expressed his taste for very spicy food,
but that neither I nor F could possibly understand for I am not a real man and
she is a delicate little flower of womanhood so neither of us could possibly
handle spicy food.

Uh-huh.

Now I am partial to hot food and will cook with all kinds
of spice, chilli etc, but I generally disapprove of the macho posturing of
making food blisteringly hot for the sake of it. Heat should enhance the dish
or be a natural side effect of those flavours – actually setting out to make
food painfully hot so you can prove how tough you are strikes me as
ridiculously childish and a waste of perfectly good food. Also, I think a lot
of spicy food should (and usually is) served with a cooling agent – soured
cream, yogurt, guacamole, chutney, raita, salads, tzatziki, etc.

I would never ever make food ridiculously hot just to
prove that I (and F) can handle far hotter food than he and he should go home
sobbing like a little boy. Of course not.

Cooking extremely nice food where the heat is an entirely
natural part of the food process and adds to its delicious flavour and just
happens to be very very hot indeed? Why, it’s a pure coincidence, I assure you!

Did I mention that Beloved’s
Bird’s Eye Chilli plant has a truly impressive crop of teeny tiny red chillies?

He was quite capable, at any time, of recognising the
sauces were far far too hot for him and kept to the sour cream and hoi sin
dips. And just because F and I were double dipping didn’t mean he had to, now,
did it?

One of the constant attacks from anti-gay-family folk is
the idea that all kids need role models of each gender, especially of the
same-sex. So all boys need to have a father to teach them how to be a man. All
girls need a mother to teach them how to be a woman. This is known.

It’s also one of the points that a lot of straight, cis supporters have trouble
countering and they often fall back to miscellaneous excuses of “it takes a
village to raise a child” and to point out that a gay male couple will have female
friends/aunts/etc or a lesbian couple will have male friends/uncles/etc.

Yeah I’m not running with this excuse. I’m not buying the
idea that GBLT couples absolutely must have add-ons to their family to make
them as good as straight couples, it’s demeaning. It’s offensive. I’m also not
running with the idea that gender (and binary gender at that), alone of all
characteristics of a person, is so important that a child simply must have an
example of each to cling to – especially not in a world where most GBLT people
are raised in cis, straight households that not only don’t share our GBLTness
but are often hostile to us. In fact, given that, I kinda want to slap any cis,
straight person who prates on about how essential it is to have a role mode to
teach children how to be X; if anyone knows what it’s like to be raised by
parents not like us, it is us.

But let’s take this whole “I need a father to teach me
how to be a man” bullshit because I want to know exactly what it means.

See, I grew up with 2 parents, a mother and a father. My relationship with them
is… decent. It has some holes and flaws in it simply due to the extreme
heterosexist viewpoints they still haven’t shaken and a whole lot of homophobia
I haven’t brought myself to forgive and a whole lot of really nasty bigoted
family members they haven’t brought themselves to condemn, disassociate with
etc. There’s some rough ground there.

But, on the whole, we have a good relationship. And I
love my father (in that classic “we’re British men so will never show any
affection or touch each other now you are past the age of 8” kind of way),
respect him and think he did the best job he knew how as a father with only a
few problems.

And we have absolutely nothing in common

He likes sport. He even likes motor racing and golf. Any
and all sport

He’s apolitical

He doesn’t read

He doesn’t like fiction

He doesn’t laugh out loud and when he does find something
amusing it’s the cheesiest, cringe-worthy slapstick you ever did see.

He likes fixing cars and tinkering with engines and
electronics

He doesn’t cook.

He likes the pub and sports matches and all of his
socialisation revolves around them

He has no time for academics, less time for learning and
no interest in either.

He likes warblers from the 1950s that must have been
dated when he was young

He thinks long hair on a man is shocking and pretty
embarrassing

His clothing is a mess of bright, eye searing patterns

Yet he decorates in pastels and neutral tones that can
make any home into a blah-show house. And he likes pale wood.

He’s straight and pretty damn uncomfortable around gay
people

He’s a morning person. And doesn’t know the meaning of
the word insomnia.

He’s an extrovert, he has to be with people all the time.
He’s almost co-dependent in that he doesn’t know the meaning of solitary
activity. If he read, he’d be one of those people who feels the need to tell
you what he’s reading every 3 paragraphs.

Tuesday, 13 August 2013

Frankly, the idea that it'd all be find if Russia took a little break in grinding gay people's heads into the dirt so straight people could enjoy their sport without having to worry their little heads at pesky persecution never struck me as something laudable.

As to the idea that our teams and fans would going to Russia and showing that the Olympics actually has principles and will use the chance to protest against persecution - well Russia may not have to arrest them, the IOC is ready to punish them.

It seems speaking against anti-gay persecution is "political" and the IOC will have none of that going on - drawing attention to the blood spilled by gay people may get in the way of the skiing, we can't have that, can we? In fact, even wearing a rainbow pin would count, it seems. Why, maybe they don't oppose Russia's laws because the IOC agrees with them.

Friday, 9 August 2013

No doubt you have come across the great gay Russian vodka
boycott (which means you’ve actually only got a tenth of the story because it’s
actually the Russian boycott, but the vodka gets the most attention for the
booze and for reasons I will go into). And there has been much mocking and
deflecting. Oh boy has there been deflecting.

“The company’s Latvian!” they cry

Well, firstly, that’s not true – not with all its
products coming from Russia and its roots still heavily in Russia and – the
main point – the brand making a point of emphasising its Russianness. In fact,
before the latest brouhaha, Stoli was downplaying its Latvian-ness and trying
to double down on being Russian. Why?

The same reason Audi isn’t just made in Germany, it’s “Vorsprung dursch Technik”
(likely spelled wrong).

The same reason Boursin isn’t just made in France but its
adverts show me quaint French villages and has the phrase “du pain, du vin, du
bosin.”

The same reason Alpen tells me about its creamy rolled
oats (and how are rolled oats “creamy” anyway? Oats have the consistency of
birds nest and sawdust. Creamy is a grossly inappropriate adjective) with a
backdrop of rolling Alpine mountains.

Because sometimes country of origin is a selling point –
so much so that even products that don’t have it will fake it (look at Dr.
Oetker’s Ristorante Italiano rage). And Stoli uses its Russianness the same
way. It’s not vodka that happens to be Russian, it is vodka that is superior
because it is Russian. This is why a boycott focuses more on Vodka than, say,
natural gas. No-one lights up the stove and says “hah, you are using inferior
gas from the North Sea! We use only high quality Russian gas!”

This is why Russian vodka is more prominent than the rest
of the boycotts – same as the Olympics. Because they’re not just products from
a country, they’re products that make that country their brand and a selling
point. This is why we have a boycott - to make it clear associating with the brutal persecution of gay people is NOT a selling point

Also, boycotts are a fascinating insight into how little we matter to straight people: so far, fried chicken, a movie, playing winter sports, playing football and vodka are all more important than gay people's lives. It's a powerful reminder of what we mean to straight people

“It’s pathetic! Do you really think not drinking vodka
will change the laws? Can’t you do something else!”

Y’know, no matter what we do activism wise there’s always
people crawling out of the woodwork to tell us we’re doing it wrong, which more
than hacks me off. Firstly – can we do something else? Yes we can. And we are.
Shockingly, this isn’t an either/or choice. We can boycott vodka AND boycott
other Russian products AND boycott the Olympics AND target Olympic sponsors,
AND raise awareness in the blogosphere AND write petitions AND contact the IOC
AND contact the Russian embassy AND contact our local politicians AND have demonstrations
in front of embassies AND raise funds for Russia and international GBLT groups
AND both organise and prepare for demonstrations at the Olympics while
simultaneously boycotting them.

Wednesday, 7 August 2013

About every fortnight or so we get an email to our Fangs
account which follows a very predictable pattern:

It begins with gushing praise for our social justice perspective
for Urban Fantasy and our analysis of tropes and marginalised issues.

This then segues into a request. They need help. They’re
writing a book and they want advice with THIS character or THAT one. They want
to include a minority but they don’t know how. Is this a trope? Is that? Is
this ok? This totally offensive portrayal is ok because I’m a special snowflake…
right? Or maybe we could beta for them? Or how about “review” their unpublished
book? Just so they know they’ve got it right! Can’t we just help them?

This usually follows, after a refusal, with a “I thought
you cared?!”

We do care. And we have helped. We created Fangs for the
Fantasy. We have written nearly 100 posts on
marginalised issues in the media. We have poked tropes and stereotypes,
erasure and insults, slurs and depictions and themes and gods know what else.

We have helped. We have created a resource and put a lot
of work on it. And not just us – far from just us – there are many resources
out there created by marginalised people dedicated to addressing every marginalised
issue – including the media.

See this is what bothers me about the whole “duty to teach” thing. Not just
that privileged people feel entitled to get spoon fed information – but that in
doing so they are stepping over the vast resources we have ALREADY provided.

Look at the internet! Marginalised people have spent untold hours – years even –
producing blogs, sites, forums, guides and who knows what else on every last
marginalised issue under the sun. We have already poured out incredible effort
here – and that effort can also come with considerable emotional pain since it
involves poking at our sore spots AND it means exposing ourselves to an often
very hostile backlash from privileged folks

And this is why we often get short, bad tempered, snappy
or flaming enraged when asked questions we consider inane. Because we have
answered these questions. Not only have we answered them but we have handed
these resources to you, resources that cost us to make, but then you’re not
using them.

Personally, I don’t mind answering questions – I have
been professionally trained to endure the most annoying of questions. If I don’t
feel like answering I will ignore you until I have the Dice to handle them. Or I may just post links to where I have already answered the questions rather than repeat myself. But
when people ask me to work through their books after getting my contact details
from a site where I have put in untold hours giving them just the information
they ask for… yeah, even my temper frays a little there.

Saturday, 3 August 2013

I spend most of the week in distant parts doing most
annoying and tedious work and slowly melting to a puddle in this thrice cursed
heat. And why is it that I’m always the one doing the business tour of the arse
end of England anyway?

Despite this,
through the wonders of modern technology I still manage to get a lot of my own
caseload tackled. I’m feeling accomplished!

Except I get back and find that my colleague’s cases are
now on my desk. Why is this? Because he’s going on a short-notice-I’m-sure-no-one-minds
last minute holiday. Naturally I am the one considered to catch this hurriedly
dropped ball because…. Reasons (reasons I more than suspect, especially since
colleague #2 who has less work load than me hasn’t been handed these cases
because she wanted to spend more time with her husband).

I am not amused.

And then I’m on call this weekend as well? What the hell
guys? What is this, some test to see how much you can poke the Sparky before he
becomes a raging lawyer hulk and starts beating people to death with the metal-clad
briefcase of painful bruising?

I am now in a bad mood - I shall have to find someone to take it out on

Monday, 29 July 2013

The Pope has made a speech and suddenly everyone is falling over themselves hailing what a wonderfully progressive man he is and how he’s totally backed down on the homophobia.

Bullshit. Not only is it bullshit, but it is obscene and disgusting how many people are so quick and eager to swallow this man’s shit without any attempt to parse it through. The media reporting has been awful and it has been a major PR bonus for a man who is a grossly evil bigot and always has been

“It’s not for me to judge gay priests,” the pope says.

D’you know why? Because priests are celibate. Because for the last 3 popes the Catholic church has always said that they won’t judge gay people who are celibate, closeted or trying to be straight.

This is not progress. This does not change even a shred of Catholic attitudes or Catholic bigotry. It doesn’t change the fact the billion or so Catholics out there are supporting a grossly bigoted institution that attacks and dehumanises gay people every chance it gets.

The pope says he doesn’t want to marginalise gay people

Again, this is nothing new. The Catholic church has always claimed not to be homophobic, they have always claimed not to want to persecute or marginalise gay people. They have always claimed this - but their actions put the lie to the pretty speeches. Their hate speech put the lie to their pretty speeches. His hate speech puts the lie to his pretty speeches.

While he made that speech, Catholic bishops are fighting against anti-discrimination laws in the US. Lack of anti-discrimination laws by definition marginalise gay people but the Catholic are there fighting - as they are fighting against GSAs, anti-bullying laws, anti-marriage laws and every other attempt to fight for equality we have. The Catholic church’s official stance is still that gay people are “disordered,” our love lives are “acts of depravity” and that we’re against “natural law”.

None of this has changed. Francis has changed none of that. He has continued to uphold the bigoted homophobia of the Catholic church. He is continuing to push the bullshit idea of “love the sinner, hate the sin” because they continue to try and make being gay something we do rather than something they are. They still deny our personhood.

Frances hasn’t changed that. He is every bit as much a bigot as the vile Benedict who was every bit as much a bigot as the vile Jean-Paul. He and his church will continue working to oppose all of our rights and our humanity, no matter how much it hurts us or how many of us die because of Catholic hate.

This is not progress. This doesn’t even resemble progress. Nothing has changed - but the media and an inordinate number of people are now willing to sugarcoat his bigotry because there are such damn low standards for accepting GBLT people’s right to exist as full people.

But you know one thing Frances is good at? Not compassion and certainly not decency, not with the hate speech he spouted. No, this man is awesome at PR. He is a bloody genius spin doctor. Whether it’s washing people’s feet or sitting in a chair and not a throne (did he sell the throne? No?), he knows how to make big dramatic empty gestures that don’t actually change anything but look so good and the media laps it up!

This pope is no better than his predecessors, but he’s already shown a devious ability to play to the crowd and ensure there will be people there to play apologetic for his bigotry.

There are currently many protest methods going on – including
boycotting Russian vodka (which I approve of, especially since the CEOs of
these companies can’t seem to tell the difference between “support”
and “marketing to”) and boycotting the Winter Olympics which I will
definitely be doing. The point of a boycott is not just about the money, it’s
about sending a message of fury, of refusing to be associated with anything so
vile.

Of course, we know the Olympics Committee don’t give a
damn – and they seem quite satisfied with Russia’s delay on their persecution
while the athletes are present – because that’s totally ok, right!? I don’t
expect better- we’ve seen the same response
from Fifa over Qatar and
Russia. International sporting bodies barely give lip service to being
against bigotry – and both Fifa and the IOC has made it clear that they’re
happy to support bigotry and the torture and murder of gay people. Professional
sports remain a font of homophobic bigotry.

But while I support the boycotts I would also urge people
to do something concrete to help the beleaguered GBLT people of Russia,
especially since we know straight people have a track record of making excuses
for why they’re allies but their need for sports/chicken/film/football/whatever
is just TOO MUCH.

Monday, 22 July 2013

Cameron, in the name of protecting the little kiddies
from the evils of porn, is pushing a filter on all the internet in Britain to
filter out online porn. To duck around it, you have to call up your ISP and say
“RAWR GIMME MAH PORN I WANNA WANK” or some such. Probably not in so many ways,
but making it explicitly opt out means you have to contact your IP and
expressly say you want to see the naked people which promises to be extremely
embarrassing.

There are many things wrong with this.

This degree of internet control, tracking and meddling is
discomforting to say the least

The fact the man who is still supporting Page 3 is also
in favour of a ban on porn is indicative of who pays the Tory’s paychest

Frankly, it’s people’s damn choice if we want to
watch/read/look at other nekked people doing happy adult things and we
shouldn’t have to opt out of being controlled. And yes it’s sad if children see
something inappropriate – well that’s what parents are for. Doing that whole
parenting thing. Because believe me there’s a damn site more worrying on the
internet than your children seeing some inappropriate jiggly bits.

And let’s be clear here – while the morality brigade screams about child porn
(which we already have laws about), this is about all pornography – or everything
that is defined as pornography. Defined by who? I have no idea. And that’s
shady already – what counts as porn? This is particularly worrying to GBLT
people because we’ve seen time and again videos or depictions of GBLT people
considered “adult” when a similar depiction of straight people would pass
anyone’s censor. Us holding hands or kissing or gay men standing too close to
each other while being shirtless has been considered pornographic in the past.
What is pornographic?

Which brings me to a major complaint I have - internet
filters are awful. Part of that is the aforementioned inability to adequately
define porn, but part of it is that the inability for technology to recognise a
porn site. Does it block a certain percentage of skin showing? Certain body
parts? Certain words? Is it going to include pornographic blogs or tumblrs or
flickrs or whatever else people use?

The technology is dubious to say the least. At present,
various filters in the name of stopping porn block STD clinics, family planning
clinics, breast feeding sites, rape crisis centres, sex advice sites like
scarleteen and, of course, any site involving GBLT people. In fact, Tumblr’s filter
is a prime example which is has started blocking searches
for the words #gay #lesbian and #bisexual.

This isn’t an isolated case, it’s what happens every
single time there’s a filter – there are false positives and GBLT people
inevitably get included in them because our existence is still regarded as
inherently pornographic and “adult”. And
if you think a 15 year old asking their parents to take off the porn block because
they want to see porn is a difficult prospect, change that to a 15 year old asking
their parents to take it off because they want to see gay blogs and connect to
the gay community.

Saturday, 20 July 2013

I don't know whether to declare eternal love and a promise to accommodate any and all kinky requests forever (once I've finished playing) or to curse him out for destroying my time when he KNOWS i'm busy, damn it.

Can I do both?

...

..

.

Must resist.... muuuuuuuuuuuust resist the shiny. I have work to do! Work! No games! WORK!

Orson Scott Card, as you probably know, is a nasty excuse
for a human being and one of the worst bigots you could ever hope to meet. He
has also written a series of books that are pretty popular and many a straight “ally”
has twisted themselves into knots about that.

And now one of his books has been turned into a film,
Ender’s Game. I’m kind of disgusted that Lionsgate would go near this man - so
I fully support Geeks Out’s petition urging people to skip this film.

And cue straight people defending, dismissing,
downplaying and otherwise squirming around Orson Scott Card’s bigotry so they
can justify to themselves why they should see the film and so they can attack
GBLT people who are daring to call for a boycott. Let’s cut through some of
this apologetic crap

Orson Scott Card’s
precious opinions

First of all, he is not a man who disagrees with marriage
equality (though why gay people shouldn’t boycott someone who fights against
any of our rights bemuses me); he became a director of the hate group, NOM.
That goes beyond even speaking against our humanity or campaigning against our
rights or putting his money into the fight against gay people – he became the
director of a hate group.

And he is actually in favour of overthrowing any government that supports gay
families.

But this is just part of Orson Scott Card’s bigotry –
this is a man who opposed every and all rights for gay people. He actually
supports sodomy laws, he wants being gay to be illegal. He wants to lock us up
for existing – that’s a
genocidal policy aimed at eliminating us. That sounds like a pretty good
reason to shun him.

Orson Scott Card is so utterly steeped in homophobia that
he actually re-wrote Hamlet’s father as a gay paedophile, turning people gay.
He’s on record saying that it’s sexual abuse that makes people gay.

Stop downplaying the extent of this man’s hatred and how
much time, effort and money he has put into bigotry. If you need to deflect the
truth to salve your conscience then that should tell you something.

Why Boycott – the money

Lionsgate have tried to do their best to downplay
how much Orson Scott Card is involved and Gavin Hood, Harrison Ford and Robert
Orci have definitely done their very best to dismiss concerns (which makes me
think I should be boycotting more than Card if these three men are so desperate
to downplay and ignore homophobia). While homophobic defences abound, Card has
most certainly earned a big wadge of cash from them turning his book into a
film – not only that, but he is listed as a co-producer of the film. If this
film is successful, he will get more money.

When Gavin Hood, Harrison Ford and Robert Orci say Ender’s
Game has nothing to do with Orson Scott Card, they are lying to cover the
homophobia. They are putting money into the pockets of a rabid bigot who has a
track record of using his money to fight against gay people’s rights. The
audiences of this film will be putting money in Orson Scott Card’s pocket.

And not only this film. If this film is a success it’s
quite likely that more of Orson Scott Card’s books will be turned into films,
raising his profile and putting more money into his pocket.

Wednesday, 17 July 2013

Finally, after a long and painful battle, the equal
marriage law has past its final hurdle in the commons and the lords and it’s
heading for royal assent

Royal assent is a rubber stamp, even though there’s a
petition from the homophobes to try and encourage Her Maj not to sign it – that’s
just ridiculous. Even I, at my most paranoid and cynical (which is very very
paranoid indeed and cynical beyond measure) don’t believe for a second that
royal assent isn’t going to happen.

David Burrowes, the eternal homophobe, was the last one
to try and derail this and he failed. It has been an exhausting and soul
destroying fight. The homophobes in the media, on the net, in parliament, in
daily life and most certainly from the churches have been overwhelmingly
vicious. It has been a trial these last few months while the bigots did
everything they could to hurt us, to attack us, to say grossly unacceptable
things about us, to do everything they possibly could to stop our rights
advancing.

Their fight shows that our fight cannot stop- there are
still so many battles to fight, we still have to battle for our place in
society, our place as full members and our place as people due respect and even
safety. We also have to expect that they will push back against us, they will
launch their stealth attacks, their exceptions, their loopholes for bigotry –
and they will certainly try to claim that homophobia has disappeared.

Remember how ridiculous that claim is. Full legal
equality (which we don’t actually have due to some holes) does not mean
prejudice and persecution dies, nor does it mean we’re going to live in a
country that fully respects us as people. In truth, full legal equality merely
brings us to the same place that other persecuted minorities already occupy in
the UK – and only the most privileged, delusional or bigoted (Daily Mail
readers) would claim that sexism, racism et al have disappeared and there’s no problems
left in the country.

We still have to fight – but this battle? This battle we
won. I can still scarcely believe it, at every stage I expected one of the
innumerable attacks to succeed in derailing us… but we got there.

We’ve taken a step forward – but there’s a long way yet
to come. But I’m going to stand on this step and feel the joy for a while.

We will be able to get married in summer 2014, most
likely. I don’t think it will truly sink in or I will be able to relax until it
actually reaches then – but we’ve passed the hurdles.